Five Times House Avoided Cuddy and One Time He Didn't
by MissBates
Summary: AU in which House and Cuddy don't meet during canon, but canon pretty much happens to them anyway.


**Author**: MissBates  
**Genre**: Romantic fluff; 5 drabbles and a longer companion piece.  
**Word count**: ~5000  
**Characters/Pairings**: House, Cuddy. Wilson, Stacy; House/Cuddy  
**Notes**: Written for the House_Cuddy 30 Days of Christmas Challenge, Prompt 6: 'Write/create a Five Things piece'.  
**Setting**: AU in which House and Cuddy don't meet during canon, but canon pretty much happens to them anyway.

Many thanks to my beta **Brighid45** for her advice and unfailing support.

* * *

**Five times House avoided Cuddy … **

_**One: Book Store**_

One hour till the end of his shift, and he was bored shitless.

"Back in a sec," he told Todd, his fellow sufferer at the university book store, pulled a book on nephrology off a shelf in passing, and went out the back.

Three cigarettes and two chapters later he ambled back inside.

"You missed the hottest gal on campus," Todd said nodding at the door, through which a shapely ass was disappearing.

...

Lisa had hoped for a glimpse of the eccentric genius everyone was talking about, but it seemed he didn't work in the book store on Tuesdays.

* * *

_**Two: Endocrinology**_

He was on his way to the lacrosse field when some students from his year hailed him. "Hey, aren't you going to class?"

Greg shrugged. "Endocrinology? Do I look like I have time to waste?"

"Arrogant asshole," someone muttered.

"You look like someone who needs to pass the exam to get the credits," someone else said.

"I'll cheat off one of those insecure over-achieving chicks," he replied dismissively.

...

Endocrinology was compulsory for pre-clinical med students, but the notorious Greg House was conspicuously absent. Lisa wouldn't attend again; auditing courses that her prey avoided was a waste of time.

* * *

_**Three: Infarction**_

"Greg, let me take you to the hospital. _Please!_"

Stacy was right - the pain was killing him.

"I'll take you to PPTH."

No, not PPTH, where Stacy worked. She had a new boss, dynamic and idealistic - who'd got the job despite her inexperience because nobody else wanted to run such a mediocre hospital. Maybe she'd get the place ship-shape again in a few years, but going there _now_ would be suicidal.

...

Lisa heard about Stacy's boyfriend being misdiagnosed by an inexperienced resident at Princeton General - poor man! She resolved to man _her_ clinic with qualified staff.

* * *

_**Four: Blood bank**_

"You have Hep C."

"Does that mean I can't donate blood?"

"It means you'll need a new liver, if you don't get it treated." _Moron_, he added silently.

"Can't you treat me?"

"This is a blood bank, not a hospital."

He shooed the man out. The waiting room was packed with potential blood donors, but his leg needed a break. He flicked through a medical journal. PPTH was creating a diagnostic department? Interesting. But they wouldn't want _him_, a misanthrope with a bad attitude.

...

Dr Cuddy sighed. None of the applicants had the ability to think outside the box.

* * *

_**Five: Speed Dating**_

"Speed dating? No thanks."

"You enjoyed it last time," Wilson pointed out.

He had, and Wilson'd been so run down lately that he was tempted to go along to keep an eye on him. But what would he tell the chicks? _I'm Greg and I drove my car through my last girlfriend's house._

So he said, "Nah, I'll have a quiet porn evening."

...

Lisa could practically hear her mother saying, "_Dozens_ of suitable men, but you give your number to someone who's three times divorced, has cancer, and talks non-stop about his bad-ass friend. No wonder you're not married!"

* * *

**… and one time he didn't**

Persistent raps wake her. She blinks at her alarm: twelve-thirty a.m. She's barely had an hour's sleep. When the rhythmic thumping continues, she grabs her robe and heads for the door, determined to chew out the person who is systematically chipping the paint off her front door. She pulls it open, and is faced by a tall figure in a tweed hat, woollen coat and scarf. The dim light from the hall falls on a scowling face with deep furrows and grey stubble on the verge of aspiring to a beard.

"Need Wilson!" the man says cryptically.

It takes her a long moment to decipher this to mean that he's looking for James. Why anyone would look for him here in the middle of the night beats her, but she's too tired to care. "He's not here," she tells the intruder, and turns to go back to bed, yawning behind her hand.

"An Oscar-worthy performance, but I know he's here. Hand him over," the stranger rasps, stretching out his hand and wriggling his fingers as though James were a cash prize.

Her sleep-deprived brain finally makes the connection between the gaunt figure, the cane and the demand to see Wilson. "You're House." James mentioned that House was intrusive and respected no boundaries, but she hadn't taken that to mean that she was to expect midnight visits under skimpy pretexts. She stares at him, taking him in: sparse grizzled hair peeking out from under the hat, furrowed brow, keen grey eyes, straight nose, sensitive lips. (Funny, from what she'd heard at college, later from Stacy, and now from Wilson, she'd expected a wide cruel mouth.)

She's absorbed in taking in the man she has heard so much about but never met, so it's only when his lips bend into a satisfied smirk that she realises he's leering down her robe. Well, that's no surprise. Nor is the reek of whisky and smoke emanating from him. So she repeats, "He's not here. Go to bed; sober up."

"Three dates in ten days, and now he has blocked the whole weekend. Where else is he supposed to be?"

James mentioned that House was clingy, but this is ridiculous. Surely he can survive one weekend without James! "Ask _him_, not me," she says, turning away to close the door.

"You're doing Wilson," House states, a hint of accusation in his voice. "Don't screw with him."

That does it! She whirls around to glare at him. "And this is your business because?"

"Because I'm his friend. He isn't what you need. He's been married three times."

Wonderful! Another person who knows what she needs better than she does herself. "And what exactly do I need, in _your_ opinion?"

He waves a dismissive hand at her, her house, her yard, her life. "You want a guy who'll marry you (which Wilson will do), who's great with your kid (which he'll be - he has tons of practice with his bullet heads), and who'll be around. Which he won't be, not for long. Yes, he's great at investing himself - initially. Three dates in ten days, chocolates, flowers, an attentive ear. But then he'll slack, he'll stay late at work, he'll make excuses, he'll start flirting with some hapless nurse in paediatrics, he'll take it a step further, and before you know it you have a messy divorce and your kid is mourning the departure of her stepdad."

Her mother sounds balanced and supportive in comparison to this manifestation of Eeyore. "This conversation is over," she says, taking a step backwards so she can close the door.

He puts his hand up on the door and pushes against it so she can't shut it. "I've seen this happen before: you'll break his heart and I'll have to pick up the pieces - again. It gets old. So let's shorten the procedure. Tell him you don't want to see him again. I know he's great in bed, but …"

She quirks a suggestive eyebrow "You do?"

He grins drily. "All his ex-wives say so. One was even prepared to marry him again - almost, that is."

He's amusing in a creepy way, but she has no intention of getting mixed up in the complicated dynamics between him and James, and end up getting the blame for whatever crap they've got going. "First you say he'll break my heart through neglect, and then you say I'll break his. So, which is it going to be?"

"It isn't mutually exclusive," he says morosely.

It's frigging cold, her feet are bare, and her robe isn't made to brave New Jersey winters. But under the scowling accusation in his eyes she can sense his desperation, so she says, "Your concern is sweet, but you don't have to worry. I'm not sleeping with your friend. We're just friends, that's all."

"And you meet up to _talk_," he says, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Yes." It sounds lame, she admits, and if someone told her they'd met up with a guy three times in two weeks just to talk, she'd also be suspicious.

"And what do you talk about?"

He's looming over her, probably hoping to intimidate her, but she didn't get to be chief administrator before the age of thirty by letting big guys browbeat her. Unfazed, she gives him a saucy smile. "_You_, mostly."

"Me?"

She sighs. "He's worried about you. Is that so surprising?"

He draws himself upright, looking genuinely puzzled. "I'm - fine!" He focuses on her again, as though James's worries were somehow _her_ fault.

She's not surprised. His definition of 'fine' probably diverges widely from that of onlookers or friends. Or rather, 'friend', in the singular. "You're trashing your liver with a mix of vicodin and booze, you're on the verge of getting sent back to jail, you have a history of freaking out when people you care about leave you, and you wonder that he worries how you'll cope when he dies?" She shakes her head, as much at herself for getting involved in this as at him. She'd better get un-involved, and that quickly. She steps back and says in her 'end of conversation' tone, "Good night, Dr House."

But House's eyes widen and he leans in dangerously. "_When_ he dies? What's that supposed to mean?"

Oh, damn! He's sharp, even when he's sloshed. "Nothing," she says, closing the door hastily.

But it's too late. There's an impressive crunch, and when she looks up, she can see the end of his cane protruding out of the crack between door and frame, where he must have jammed it just before the door closed. She closes her eyes in mortification - she's just blabbed off her mouth, and now she's ruined a cripple's means of mobility - and then she opens the door again. House withdraws the cane and examines it. He frowns as he passes long, sure fingers along its length, feeling for damage and bending it experimentally.

"You got duct tape? I need to fix that," he says.

Wonderful! He comes in search for his friend worried out of his mind, and she breaks his cane! But duct tape? What if it doesn't hold, and he ends up slipping on the icy sidewalk? Then again, his hands seem skilled; he'll know what he's doing.

She hesitates, and then she opens the door wider to let him in, heading down the corridor ahead of him. He follows, pulling himself along the furniture so as not to place his weight on the cane. She wonders whether she should offer her assistance, but she knows from Stacy that he's chary about accepting help. So she pretends not to notice, but keeps her ears open in case he slips or teeters.

Much as she'd like to confine him to the hall where he can't access her private life, she directs him to a safe haven with seating, the living room, and goes off in search of duct tape. When she returns with the duct tape, he wraps it around the splintered portion, tests the result, adds a second layer, and then a third one.

"What's he got?" he finally says, not looking up.

She'd _hoped_ he'd drop the topic. "You should ask _him_," she says tartly.

"You think Wilson's going to be happy if I bully him into telling me his little secret?" he asks.

She twirls a lock of her hair, contemplating him. He's enticing her into his web by making his demands seem reasonable and by insinuating that she'll be responsible for whatever asshoodedness he'll get up to if she doesn't accede to them. But she's been playing power games for close on seventeen years now, and she'd have been road kill long ago if she fell for simple ruses like that. So she answers, "Seems James doesn't want you to know. You should respect his wish for privacy."

He pretends to ponder this. "Nope, doesn't sound like me," he says with a shake of his head. "I _could_ break into his physician's office and steal his file," he adds ruminatively.

James did mention that House has no respect for privacy, but _that_ is a step beyond digging around in people's drawers or leafing through their calendar. It's criminal. "You're kidding," she says, but the glint in his eyes isn't exactly humorous. It's more of a predatory gleam.

"Try me. Wanna know about your six-day marriage to your biochemistry TA in your sophomore year? Or your cancer scare two years ago? Or your crack baby's parents?"

She's struck dumb for a moment. The jerk must have hacked her medical records, set a PI on her, and bribed a few people along the way. The energy that he put into his research must be quite substantial - she doubts anyone outside Michigan knows about her short marriage; her family doesn't, and she'd prefer to keep it that way. _And_ she certainly wants him to stay out of her private life.

"That's not funny!" she presses through her teeth, because she can't yell without risking waking Rachel. "It's creepy and it's stalker-ish, and it's definitely 100% illegal! I could have you sent back to jail for this!"

He's quite clearly unimpressed, mostly because he's apparently mesmerised by what he can glimpse of her cleavage - which has been on display ever since she leaned forward across the coffee table to lend emphasis to her words. Which it does, but not in the way she intends. She pulls herself up and says, "You're not listening, are you?"

"Huh?" he says, smirking at her.

What is James's well-being worth to him? "How much did you pay for all that intell?" she asks.

"About two grand for the private stuff. The work related stuff that I dug up cost more." He shrugs indifferently. "If Wilson has to pay any more alimony, I'll have to pay for his meals. And that would really hurt."

He's not looking at her, but at a spot somewhere on the carpet. "You really care about him, don't you?" she says.

He stares at the tips of his trainers, bouncing his cane on the floor. He's a lot more convincing when he keeps his mouth shut than when he's shooting it off.

She comes to a decision. "Thymoma," she says. "He's got thymoma."

He looks up, instantly relieved, and she can understand why. It was her first reaction too - until James told her the details. Because James has grown himself a bitch of a thymoma.

"Type C," she elucidates.

"Thymic carcinoma?" His expression morphs from blatantly hopeful to morbidly anxious. But his next question is all professional in tone and content. "Low grade or high grade?"

"Low grade, but it's too large to be operable. He'd need to do chemo to shrink it, and if it doesn't shrink …" She lets the sentence peter out. Normally she isn't averse to phrasing uncomfortable truths, but in this case she doesn't need to state the obvious. He is, by all accounts, a better doctor than she is.

"He isn't going to do chemo, is he?" House asks.

He doesn't miss much, does he?

"Why the fuck not?" he yells, making her wince.

She raises her eyebrows in reprimand, but merely says, "He doesn't feel he's got anything to live for."

"What about _me_?"

He's as self-centred as a child. She'd thought James was being over-protective in keeping House in the dark regarding his state, but now she concedes that he may have a point. But how to get James's point of view across to House? "He thinks you'll derail completely when you realise he's sick. He doesn't want to go through chemo to buy himself no more than a few measly months, the highlight of which will be your funeral."

He thumps his fist on the coffee table. "I'm _not_ killing myself with vicodin! I'm on a totally acceptable dosage!" He's still yelling, and from the looks of it he won't stop anytime soon.

"Don't yell; you'll wake my daughter. And tell James, not me." Her parenting books advise physical contact when reprimanding a child, so that it knows that it is still loved despite its failings; accordingly, she sits down on the armrest of the couch and places a calming hand on his arm. At least, that's what it's supposed to be, but he stares at it suspiciously, so she removes it again. She tries the voice of reason once more. "From what he told me you didn't take too kindly to a health scare involving your last girlfriend."

"_One_ goddam vicodin!" he mutters. She can't help looking at him somewhat incredulously; James's version of events had included a _lot_ of vicodin, booze, hookers, experimental drugs, home surgery, and a bout of domestic violence. He interprets the look correctly, because he adds, "The rest was afterwards, after she dumped me."

_Oh, right, _that_ makes it okay!_ She doesn't voice her thoughts, though, because she isn't willing to get mixed up in debates about domestic violence with a convicted perpetrator. "Maybe James isn't in the mood to appreciate the fine difference."

"The _fine_ difference? There's a fucking chasm between really, actually, and irrevocably being dumped, and combatting anxiety with a bit of medication!" He's pacing through her living room, his voice rising again, his free hand gesticulating. "Wilson thinks I'm going to feel better if he commits suicide by medical neglect?"

She needs him to calm down before Rachel wakes and starts bawling in fear. Besides, if he's to be of any help to James, he has to accept that this isn't about him. Well, it _is_ in a way, but not in a good one. Standing up to face him, she grasps both his forearms in her hands and waits until he's looking into her eyes. "James thinks _he's_ going to feel better."

House tosses his head back. "Great! He's a selfless martyr all his life, and now of all times he has to discover his true egoistic nature? He's going to leave me, and I …"

His rant subsides, and he swallows hard, returning her grip so tightly that she almost yelps in pain. The tale of his stunt with his car and his ex-girlfriend's house suddenly hits her with full impact, and for a moment her heart races.

_Deep breath_, she tells herself. _This isn't directed against you - he doesn't even realise he's holding you._

She carefully pries his hands loose, keeping hold of them at the same time. He's leaning heavily on her all of a sudden, unable to bear his own weight, and she wonders how much he drank before he came here. Then all thoughts about his sobriety are driven from her mind as he buries his nose in her neck. Common sense tells her to push him away and to reinstate boundaries, but her hands follow their own rules, drawing him closer, clasping him around the back and drawing soothing circles on his shoulder blades. They stand like that for a long time, and by the time his hands close in on her waist and his lips start nuzzling her skin instead of merely resting on it, common sense has long packed up for the night.

He's still there in the morning. Common sense has also returned; House and common sense don't go well together, she finds. It's time for short, unequivocal messages.

"I'm going to shower. When I come back, I want you gone."

He doesn't seem surprised. In fact, he's surprisingly docile. By the time she has snatched up some clothes he's swinging his legs out of bed and angling for his T-shirt.

Her bedroom is deserted, his things gone, when she comes out of the shower. She towels her hair dry, trying to focus on the coming day.

There's a screech from the kitchen. "Mo-om, there's a man here!"

She jumps up and runs to the kitchen. Rachel is standing in the doorway, staring in consternation at House, who is sitting there as though she'd invited him to stay and raid her kitchen cupboards.

"I thought I told you to leave."

"I will - after breakfast." He's got a bowl of Rachel's favourite cereal in front of him, and so far he hasn't acknowledged Rachel's presence. Well, she isn't going to give him the impression that he's part of her life merely because he spent the night, so she doesn't introduce them to each other. Instead, she waves Rachel to her seat.

"What do you want for breakfast?" she asks her.

Rachel stares at the froot loop carton next to House's elbow, not daring to state her wishes. House, registering her glance, empties the rest of the carton into his bowl. God, but he has the maturity level of a six year old! Rachel's face crumbles, so instead of eviscerating House, she takes proactive steps to save the morning. She pulls a packet of Rachel's favourite Sunday treat, pop tarts, from the cupboard. Rachel's face lights up immediately.

The rest of the meal passes in silence, House slurping cereal and Rachel wolfing down the tarts for fear of having to share them with House. Cuddy doesn't have the heart to reprimand her.

"Mom, who is he?" Rachel finally asks in what is supposed to be a discrete whisper.

"He's - a friend. His name is House," Cuddy answers reluctantly.

"He smells!" Rachel says in the same carrying whisper.

"He hasn't showered," Cuddy says by way of explanation, trying to banish the image of his sweating body intertwined with hers from her mind.

"Hey, I have feelings!" House says, pouting in mock hurt. Rachel flushes and scampers out of the kitchen.

She needs to get rid of House before she combusts, so, by way of an anvil she pulls his bowl out from under him and places it demonstratively in the sink. From there she glowers down at him.

He stirs his coffee. Then he says, out of the blue, "Same time, same place tonight?"

Seriously? _Seriously?_ "We're not doing this again," she says levelly.

"You had fun," he states.

He's right, unfortunately. It wasn't the best sex of her life, but she'd enjoyed it more than she'd expected, considering he'd been slightly inebriated, numbed by opiates, and physically challenged by his missing chunk of thigh muscle. Her problem isn't the sex, it's the risks attached. "The price is too high."

"I'm willing to negotiate. I can make you a special offer: book me for two nights and you can have the third one for free." He leans over to leer at her. She catches herself finding it cute instead of offensive, because in bed he's anything but offensive. He's appreciative and - awed. That's the word for it, awed.

She smiles, but whisks his coffee mug away all the same. Then she sits down opposite him and waits until he looks her in the eyes. "I like you," she says. She lets the sentence with its unspoken 'but' hang in the air.

"What do you want?" he asks. "What do I have to do to be acceptable?"

She stares at him in surprise. "You'd be willing to change?"

"Not 'change', precisely," he says. "Let's say, 'adapt'."

She calculates quickly in her head. "Here are the rules: no vicodin, anger management classes, and you have to be nice to my daughter." She has no illusions that he'll even consider agreeing to any of these conditions, much less comply with them, but let _him_ be the one to say that it's a no-go!

He pretends to consider her conditions. "That's tough," he says.

"No one said it would be easy. Take it or leave it."

"I once worked for a carpenter making custom furniture," he says. She rolls her eyes at this digression, but she listens, wondering why he worked for a carpenter and how long he lasted. "He used to say, 'My customers want good quality, they want it fast, and they want it cheap. I tell them they can have two out of three, but all three isn't possible.'"

She fiddles around with a spoon. "Fine," she finally says, "I'll take sobriety and anger management."

"So I'm allowed to be a real jerk to your daughter? Geez, what kind of a mother are you?"

Now he's trying to provoke her, hoping that she'll get mad and rescind her offer, so he won't have to admit to himself that he hasn't got it in him to comply with two very reasonable demands. Well, she isn't going to do him that favour. She levels a glare at him, which he greets with a raised eyebrow. "'Niceness' is neither quantifiable nor verifiable," she notes. "You'd be pushing that one all the time anyway. Sobriety and anger management can be verified, so I'll go with those."

His smile is appreciative. "Okay we're on," he says. "In what form do you want your verifiable proofs?"

She's gob-smacked.

He sighs, as though confronted with a particularly dense specimen of human nature. "Urine tests for the sobriety and the attendance record of my anger management course?" he asks with an air of patience stretched to the limit.

"You're - in anger management?"

"Part of the parole package," he says.

"And you're clean?" She finds that hard to believe.

"Technically - not yet. But I will be. Gimme three weeks."

"Okay," she says, wondering what she's got herself into. "Why three weeks?"

"That's how long a detox in the institution of my choice takes."

She still doesn't quite know what to say. Does she want this? "What's to stop you from quitting your anger management classes once you're off parole?"

"What's to stop _you_ from kicking my sorry ass to the curb if I mess this up by stopping anger management or relapsing?" he counters. "This is low risk for you."

"What's in it for you?"

He rises and looks her up and down from his six-foot-odd perspective. "You have to ask that?" he says suggestively. Then he turns to go. "Gotta make an appointment at the nuthouse for a detox," he says casually as he limps towards the door.

She may be naïve and a hopeless romantic, but she isn't so deluded as to believe that her magic healing vagina can induce an addict to detox after a one-night stand. "Wait, you're not doing this for me, are you? You're doing this," she thinks aloud, "because - because it'll give you leverage with James."

He stops and turns back again. "Oops, you've got me!" he says, with no sign of guilt.

She taps the table with her fingers.

"Look," he says, "I can bargain with Wilson: I'll detox if he'll do chemo to shrink the tumour. He'll take the deal, because he foolishly believes that it's his job to save me. But what happens afterwards?"

"After what?" she asks stupidly.

"When he's in remission." _Or dead_, hangs unspoken in the air. "What incentive do I have to _stay_ sober once my aim is achieved? Wilson is going to ask that question too, because he isn't stupid."

"So I'm a blind to make Wilson believe you'll stay sober," she says, a hard knot forming in her gut.

He limps back to the table. "If you believe that, you're an idiot," he says. His hand strays up to her face, his thumb caressing her chin. And then he plants a light kiss on the corner of her mouth, before drawing back and straightening up.

She notices that he's leaning hard on his cane, his hand tense and knotted, and she remembers guiltily that she didn't bother to ask him last night whether their exertions would bother his leg. Not that he's the type to wear his pain on his sleeve. So she asks instead, "Should you be leaning so hard on the cane? I don't think duct tape will keep it from breaking after the beating it took last night."

He looks down at the duct tape bandage as though registering it for the first time, and then he tears it off with quick tugs. "You're right, the duct tape is plain stupid. The cane is fine - it's hardwood of the finest quality," he says, managing to give the words an X-rated significance.

"I heard it splinter!" Cuddy insists.

"Not the cane." House lifts it in mock salute. "_You_, however, might need a new door. Merry Christmas, Cuddy." And with that he's gone.


End file.
